I’m curious about this myself. I play fingerstyle, but mostly Travis picking and solo acoustic blues type stuff, I’ve never tried to play lead fingerstyle, alla Mark Knopfler. I have tried playing scales fingerstyle once or twice, just messing around.
If your goal in learning to play scales fingerstyle is to eventually get to
Knopfler-like lead playing, then I don’t think the method you suggest above is the best approach. That is standard for playing Travis-picked type stuff, where the thumb handles the bass notes and the fingers the treble strings. I think it would be too slow for playing fast leads fingerstyle.
For playing real lead lines fingerstyle, I think (but I’m not sure!) the base technique is to alternate the thumb and index finger. It’s like alternate picking with a pick, but you use the thumb for the downstroke and the index finger for the upstroke. I say “base technique”, because for complicated lines you will probably have to more than just thumb-index alternating, but I would think it’s good place to start for playing scales.
As I said, I don’t know the right answer, these are just some of my thoughts. I hope somebody who is familiar with this style (@JustinGuitar ??) can chime in!
So here I am, three years in, and still finding it a struggle to get my fingers to stretch out far enough to fret up next to the frets in the first four frets. I’m mainly talking about anytime the pinky is involved, so basically the stretch with middle finger and pinky or ring finger and pinky just ain’t going to be very wide.
For scale practice, do I need to be really forcing the stretch in order to condition my stretch to widen, or is it an elbow placement thing, or some other trick? Or is it recommended to simply make the hand moveable within the scale to suit the need to get to the best finger placement up next to the fret?
Edited to add: the struggle is typically amongst the thinnest strings when my fingers are curled.
I appreciate and value all input, but I am also interested in @Richard_close2u or other approved teachers’ insight.
Stacy, if you’ve been working on finger stretching for 3 years, then you’re probably at your limit.
Don’t worry that you can’t do it on the first four frets. You don’t need to have your fingers down behind the fretted note. So yes, move your hand to be able to reach the notes with your pinkie.
Better to play the note well than forcing a stretch that you can’t reach.
@artax_2 When it comes to actual musical playing as opposed to scale practice, you will very rarely be using the one finger per fret approach. That is a practice restriction that becomes null and void for expressive, creative free play using a scale to play melodies and lead lines … which are most likely on the thinner strings.
You will instead use slides and hand shifts and other techniques to move between frets 2 - 5 (with a pattern 1 G major scale).
I have created a short melodic piece over eight bars to demonstrate this.
The chord progression is
| G | D | C | D |
| G | D | C | G |
Look at the tab and how I have notated finger choices and techniques for moving between frets. The one finger per fret rule is abandoned. The 4th finger isn’t used at all.
Also, remember. This is just the G major scale. The pattern is entirely movable. You will probably find it easier further along the neck. Try placing the root note at fret 8 and play the C major scale - something you have already met as a scale with open strings earlier in the beginner course.
